Dave Remnant, M0SAT in Watford, England was facing a common problem these days. "I needed to have a low profile antenna which worked well on as many bands as possible." Sound familiar? Dave elected to go with a vertical antenna and did his research carefully. "After trying numerous vertical multibands, I gave up and purchased a SG-230 (feeling I was settling for a compromised system)."
Dave placed his antenna at the end of his garden near a Silver Birch tree. Can you see it in the photo? He constructed his antenna by first sinking a 4"X4" wooden fence post to act as an insulator from the ground for 3 feet and set it in concrete. Three large bolts through the wood mount a 35 foot scaffold pole for the antenna. Rather than guy the pole, Dave drops the antenna in high winds.
The pole itself is setup to operate as a vertical radiator for local (European) contacts and a horizontal line from the top runs 80 feet to his chimney giving him an effective inverted L configuration for DX work. He has buried radials from the pole 3" into the ground and connected everything to an SG-230 coupler mounted on the fence at the base of the antenna.
The coupler is wired to the base of the pole and to a mount for the radials at the base of the wooden support, forming a very effective antenna system. How effective? Dave has worked 93 countries with this setup in 3 months on all bands from 160-10 meters with a Yaesu FT840. Dave's comment: "What a fantastic unit and ideal for those wanting to maximise band use with minimal space and keeping low profile."
As Dave goes on to say "The neighbours are happy. I'm very pleased. THIS IS A NO COMPROMISE SYSTEM!" (The bold face is Dave's).
SGC Smartuners™ provide fast, accurate, and reliable operation in a completely untended environment. No matter what antenna you're using or what transceiver you prefer, an SGC Smartuner can make them work better together. Nothing makes it simpler to get a good signal out than an SGC Smartuner.
In a follow-up letter, Dave expressed his satisfaction far better than we can when he said, "It seems to be very rare these days to find a product that 'really does what it says on the box'. Yours, thankfully, is one ... ". He goes on to attribute his success to reading his manual carefully "I just followed your 5 GOLDEN RULES and the results speak for themselves. (Reading the manual always helps!)".
SGC Inc., Tel:
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Email: sgc@sgcworld.comSGC reserves the right to change specifications, release dates and price without notice.